Abstract

Background

Although Primary Health Care (PHC) Teams are used to deal with prevention and treatment
of sanitary problems in adults with chronic diseases, they usually have a lack of
experience in development of psychotherapeutic interventions. However, these interventions
are the ones that achieve better results to reduce symptomatology and improve emotional
state of caregivers.

The study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of an intervention of psychotherapy in
improving the mental health and Quality of life of caregivers. This intervention is
based on theoretical approaches to care adjusted to cognitive theory, in order to
be applied in primary health care centres.

Methods/Design

This is multicentre clinical trials study, randomized in two parallel groups, carry
out in two PHC, Study population: 150 caregivers will be included by consecutive sampling
and they will be randomized the half to experimental group and the other half to control
group. They provide mostly all the assistance to care-dependent familiars receiving
attention in PHC Centers.

Measurements: Each caregiver will be evaluated on a personal interview. The caregivers'
assessment protocol: 1) Assessment of different socio-demographic related to care,
and caregiver's personal situation. 2)Care-dependent individuals will also be assessed
by Barthel Index and Pfeiffer Questionnaire (SPMSQ). 3)Change in caregivers will be
the principal measure: family function (Family APGAR Questionnaire), burden short
questionnaire (Short Zarit Burden Interview), quality of life (Ruiz & Baca: 1993 Questionnaire),
the Duke-UNK Functional Social Support Questionnaire, the General Health Questionnaire-12,
and changes in Dysfunctional Thoughts about caring. 4) Intervention implementation
measures will also be assessed.

Intervention: A psychotherapeutic intervention will be 8 sessions of 90 minutes in
groups. This intervention has been initially developed for family caregivers of patients
with dementia.

Discussion

Psychotherapeutic interventions have been proved to obtain better results to reduce
symptomatology and improve emotional state of caregivers. Moreover, this intervention
has been proved to be effective in a different setting other than PHC, and was developed
by professionals of Mental Health. If we found that this intervention is effective
in PHC and with our professionals, it would be an important instrument to offer to
caregivers of care-dependent patients.